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Transportation Archive

Archives for August 2025

Why do Waymos keep loitering in front of my house?

Inside the algorithm that gives Waymo its marching orders between rides.

Rachel Kraus
Andrew J. Hawkins
Andrew J. Hawkins
Waymo is feeling itself.

We may start to see Waymo robotaxis in a lot more cities in the coming months, the company’s co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said on Hard Fork this week:

You’re going to start seeing our cars in a lot of cities. If you think about our business in terms of scale, we’re currently giving hundreds of thousands of rides every week and, in all likelihood, by the end of next year, we will be offering around one million rides per week.

Mawakana didn’t specify which cities, but we already know that the company plans to launch in Washington, DC, Miami, and New York City, and has been gathering data in Houston, Orlando, San Antonio, Las Vegas, San Diego, and even Japan.

Thomas Ricker
Thomas Ricker
Tesla down, BYD way up.

European registrations for new Tesla cars were down 40 percent in July compared to the same month last year, while EVs from BYD were up 225 percent. It’s the seventh consecutive month of declines for Musk, in a month that saw sales of EVs grow, according to ACEA data.

Andrew J. Hawkins
Andrew J. Hawkins
Everyone is freaking out about teens on e-bikes.

I’m sure you’ve seen the posts on Facebooks complaining about scofflaw teenagers on high-powered electric bikes. But the real culprit here is the outdated laws that allow manufacturers to market what are essentially high-speed electric motorcycles and mopeds as “e-bikes” by putting pedals on them. Berm Peak just put out a great video that gets at the crux of this freakout.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Waymo recieves its first robotaxi permit in NYC.

Mayor Eric Adams announced that the DOT has granted Waymo a permit to test up to eight autonomous vehicles in Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn with a safety driver at the wheel. Waymo aims to eventually operate its robotaxis without safety drivers, which NYC currently prohibits.